I wasn’t sure I followed his logic—knowing that something is wrong and knowing how to fix it are two very different things—but I was willing to go along with it, for the moment, because it was going to get me something that I needed.
“Take me to work with you, and I’ll show you,” I said.
Dad blinked. Then he frowned. “I don’t think you understand the importance of my request.”
“I don’t think you understand the importance of mine.” I had Dr. Cale’s side of the story. I’d been getting SymboGen’s side of the story since the day I woke up from my coma. Now it was time to get a neutral perspective. Maybe that would tell me what I had to do next.
For a long moment, Dad just sat and looked at me. Finally, sighing, he stood. “All right,” he said. “Get your things. We’re leaving in five minutes.”
“Thank you,” I said, and clutched Don’t Go Out Alone a little tighter as I jumped to my feet and ran back to my room.
The drive to the San Francisco USAMRIID field office was quiet. Dad didn’t say anything, and so neither did I. He turned on the radio once, scanning quickly through the bands of pop music, classic rock, and overcaffeinated morning DJs making prank calls and telling sexist jokes. Then he turned the radio off again, letting silence reclaim ownership of the car.
We were halfway there when it got to be too much for me. “Where’s Joyce?” I asked, desperate for conversation. After five days of isolation, I was ready for social contact, no matter how strained.
Dad grimaced. “She’s at the lab,” he said.
I paused. “Did she come home last night?” I didn’t remember hearing her, but that didn’t mean anything. I’d been so wrapped up with feeling sorry for myself and hating my parents that I wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off in the kitchen.
“No.” He sounded almost grudging. “She felt that our treatment of you was extreme, no matter how good our reasons were for making the decisions that we did. She also understood that there wasn’t a better way, and so, rather than continuing to argue, she stayed at the office to make her feelings clear. We have a break room with a few cots in it, for times when exhaustion makes it unsafe to drive. After an eighteen-hour shift working in Biohazard Safety Level 4, you’re not getting behind the wheel. Not while I have anything to say about it.”
“She’s sleeping in the Ebola Room?”
Dad actually chuckled at that. “No, the break room isn’t in Level 4, just adjacent to it. We haven’t had a leak since ’02. She’s perfectly safe, and I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to see you, especially when you demonstrate the SymboGen test for infection.”
I squirmed a little in my seat. “About that…”
“Sal.” Dad shot me a warning glance. “Please don’t tell me you lied to me just to get out of the house.”
“What? Jeez, Dad, no! But I don’t know how much the test really means. Nathan and I both checked out clean, and someone we knew for sure was sick checked out infected, but I have no idea whether it can show you the early stages. Maybe it’s something that just works on people who have already started sleepwalking.”
“You said that SymboGen checked you after you were exposed, yes? Well, that means it’s at least somewhat useful as a form of early detection—and I’ll be honest, Sal. We’re to the point of grasping at straws, here. Whatever you can give us, we’ll take it.”
“I could have given this to you days ago.” It was a cheap dig, but it felt worth taking.
“You could. But then SymboGen might have realized that we were onto them. I couldn’t take that chance.” Dad glanced my way again, this time without the warning. “The last thing I want to do is put you, or anyone else, in danger. Please believe that.”
“I do.” I settled back in my seat, resisting the urge to hug Don’t Go Out Alone to my chest again. “I really do.”
We finished the drive in silence.
The San Francisco branch of USAMRIID—the United States of America Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases—was constructed in what used to be the Treasure Island military base, before changes in personnel and deployment caused the base’s original purpose to become outmoded. It sat empty for several years, before the property was repurposed to allow the military to keep an eye on the growing California biotech and medical research fields.
I knew the history of the facility because I lived with my father and Joyce, both of whom were more than happy to talk about where they worked, if not what they did every day. I knew the word “outmoded” because of Sherman, who had chosen it as our word of the day over a year before.
My cautiously optimistic mood deflated, leaving me feeling hollow, without even the comforting sound of drums to buoy me up. No matter what we did, no matter what I learned or what I was able to share with my father’s lab, Sherman was still going to be dead. He was never going to teach me another vocabulary word, or threaten to seduce my boyfriend away from me. Sherman was gone.
In that moment, I hated SymboGen, I hated D. symbogenesis, and most of all, I hated Dr. Shanti Cale, for making it possible for the rest of it to happen in the first place. I hated them for ruining everything, and for hurting so many of the people I cared about. They were the ones who opened the broken doors, not us. But we were the ones who were paying for their actions.
My father pulled up at the gate, where sturdy-looking guard stations loomed on either side of the car. A young man in army green was seated in the driver’s side booth, a clipboard in his hands. My father rolled down his window. The young man rose, and saluted.
“Colonel Mitchell,” he said.
“At ease, soldier.” My father indicated me. “This is my daughter, Sally Mitchell. She’s on the approved visitor’s list. I need a pass for her.”
“Yes, sir.” The young man gestured to the uniformed woman in the other guard booth. The window rolled down as she approached my door. I hate it when drivers do that. It just reminds me of how little control I have.
“Ma’am,” she said.
“Hello,” I said.
“Please look at the blue dot.” The woman indicated a blue dot at the center of a smooth black metal box mounted on the guard station wall. I looked at it, bemused. The woman typed something on a keyboard. “Her pass will be waiting when you get inside.”
“Thank you,” said my father, and drove onward to the barrier, which rose as we approached it.
I sat back in my seat, blinking. “What just happened?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Dad—”
“We’re here.”
The San Francisco USAMRIID installation consisted of four main buildings, connected by stone walkways, and the boxy shape of the Level 4 lab, which was isolated from the rest of the facility by more than twenty yards. Collapsible tunnels connected it to the administration building. They could be sterilized and removed in less than ninety seconds, leaving the L4 lab completely cut off. The doors would lock automatically at the same time. Anyone left inside would find themselves depending on the vending machines and their own ability not to die from unspeakable pathogens until someone came up with an extraction plan.
Naturally, that was where my sister worked, and naturally, that was our destination. Dad parked the car just outside the lab’s main entrance, in the spot marked DIRECTOR. Similar spaces were reserved outside all the lab buildings, since there was no telling where he’d need to be at any given time.
“Now, remember,” he cautioned, as we got out of the car. “Don’t touch anything unless I tell you it’s safe, and don’t—”
“If you tell me not to lick anything, I’m going to throw something at you,” I cautioned. Not Don’t Go Out Alone—I couldn’t justify leaving it at home, but I wasn’t taking it inside, either. The book was in my shoulder bag, which was safely tucked under my seat, along with my notebook. Hopefully, no one was going to notice it there. It felt a little odd to be worrying about an old picture book and a bunch of half-coherent dreams. Then again, everything felt a little
odd these days.
Dad looked abashed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that you haven’t been trained the way Joyce has, and I worry about you.”
I smiled wanly. “It’s okay. Let’s just go inside, and I’ll show you what I can.”
He nodded. “All right. But Sal… we’re going into a live research project. The L4 building is almost entirely dedicated to the sleepwalkers right now. You must follow my instructions at all times. Do you understand?”
“I do,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Dad nodded one more time before turning and leading me out of the parking lot, toward the unmarked but somehow menacing door of the Level 4 lab. I took a deep breath and followed him, with the oddly comforting sound of drums hammering in my ears. Whatever was behind that door, it would be something I didn’t know yet, and every piece of this puzzle counted.
Guards flanked the door. They saluted my father as he approached. He returned the salute almost absentmindedly, and turned to shield the keypad with his body as he entered his security code. The lock disengaged, and he pulled the door open, beckoning me inside.
“Be careful now,” I murmured, and stepped through.
The fact that the scientific community has willingly accepted Steve’s sanitized explanation for the origins of D. symbogenesis strikes me as a form of modern miracle—or perhaps it’s just proof that we inevitably get the saviors we deserve. In an earlier era, Steve would have been a traveling snake oil salesman, offering people cures too good to be true. Today, he peddles a new form of snake oil, one that can be just as dangerous, and just as destructive.
If you believed that D. symbogenesis was the simple, easily controlled organism SymboGen described in their press releases and paperwork, you have been sold a bottle of snake oil. While you may well deserve what that gets you, the truth is, I enabled Steve to become such a great salesman… and while I may not regret the science, I am truly sorry for the lies.
—FROM CAN OF WORMS: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF SHANTI CALE, PHD. AS YET UNPUBLISHED.
I don’t think anyone can deny that the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard™ changed the face of medicine as we know it. Chronic conditions can now be treated on an ongoing basis by the ingestion of a single pill—it’s just that the pill contains the egg of a D. symbogenesis, and the implant will handle all the ongoing medical care. No more worrying about affording your prescriptions, no more missed doses or mix-ups at the pharmacy. Everything is taken care of.
Were we perfect from the word “go”? No. Even if we weren’t only human, that would have been a little much to ask of us, don’t you think? We could only do what anyone is capable of doing: our best. We rose to the challenges we were offered, and we did what we could to meet and match them. I think that when history looks at our accomplishments, the good that we managed to do will outweigh the bad. I hope so, anyway. No one wants to set out to be a hero, and discover after the fact that they’ve been a villain all along.
—FROM “KING OF THE WORMS,” AN INTERVIEW WITH DR. STEVEN BANKS, CO-FOUNDER OF SYMBOGEN. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ROLLING STONE, FEBRUARY 2027.
Chapter 15
SEPTEMBER 2027
After Dad’s dire warnings, the entry hall of the L4 building was almost anticlimactic. I was expecting something out of one of Joyce’s science fiction movies, with unfamiliar equipment and unexplained lasers everywhere. What I got was basically a hallway that could have been leading to any ER in the world. The walls were a hospital-standard shade of eggshell white, with bands of color painted on them to help guide researchers to the right parts of the building, and the floor was an industrial avocado green that looked like it had been chosen to coordinate with generic medical scrubs.
Another uniformed guard sat at the reception desk. Dad motioned for me to stay where I was as he walked over and exchanged a few words with the man in a low voice. The man’s eyes flickered to me and back to Dad again. I tried not to squirm. Finally, my father leaned over the desk and picked up an old-fashioned telephone. A thick cord connected it to a base that looked heavy enough to be used as a melee weapon. He brought the phone to his ear, and was silent for several seconds before he said, “This is Colonel Alfred Mitchell. My daughter, Sally, is with me. Can you confirm the current conditions in the main lab?” There was another pause before he said, “Yes, I’ve cleared her presence through the appropriate channels. I am the appropriate channels. Can you confirm current conditions?”
He sounded annoyed. I stayed where I was. When my father was annoyed, the last place I wanted to be was in his line of fire. He never really yelled at me—that pleasure was generally reserved for Joyce, who didn’t seem to mind; she gave as good as she got, anyway, and that seemed to work for both of them—but he’d look at me sometimes like he wasn’t sure what I was doing, or why I was allowed to be wherever I was, and that was something I wanted to avoid if at all possible.
When he looked at me like that, he was frightening.
Dad made a small, irritated sound. “Well, tell Michael to put things back in their boxes. We’re coming through in five minutes. Sally has something she needs to show me, and that means we need to be inside the lab space.” He slammed the receiver down on its base harder than he needed to as he turned to face me. “The lab is not prepared for civilian visitors. They’ll be ready for us shortly.”
“Do you mean ‘not prepared’ like ‘they need to clean up,’ or ‘not prepared’ like ‘someone dropped a vial and now it’s all melting flesh and screaming’?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I wasn’t sure I’d ever sleep again if I didn’t know the answer.
That actually made Dad smile. “Neither,” he said. “It’s ‘not prepared’ in the sense of ‘there is confidential material that shouldn’t be seen by civilian eyes out on the counters.’ ”
“Oh.” I paused, frowning. “But… isn’t Joyce a civilian?”
Dad’s smile faded. “Yes,” he said, and the weight of disappointment in that word was as crushing as it was confusing. If Joyce was a civilian, what was the problem with my asking the question?
He turned away before I could ask him, saying something else quiet to the guard at the desk. The guard nodded, handing him a key card and a visitor’s pass. The pass had my picture on it. Dad turned, holding them out to me.
“How did they make it so fast?” I asked, taking the pass and card.
My father ignored my question. “The women’s changing room is over there,” he said, indicating a door at the back of the reception area. It was unmarked. “Go in there and get yourself into some scrubs; affix the pass to the front of them. We’re going into a clean area, and I’d rather you didn’t introduce contamination.”
“Dad—”
“Just get changed, Sal. We’ll talk about all this later.”
I frowned. His mood swings and changes in attitude were starting to worry me. Given Dr. Cale’s description of the components of D. symbogenesis, what were the chances it could be interfering with his brain function? Was my father’s implant beginning to take over? And if it was, was there anything I could possibly do about it?
That line of thought would lead me nowhere good, and it wasn’t like I’d have to wait long to learn the answer: we were about to go into a clean area. Once we were there, I’d show him how the UV light tests worked, and I could use that as an excuse to check him for signs of infection. After that was done… well, we’d see what happened after that. If nothing else, if I knew he was infected before he did, I could run like hell.
I bit my lip. “I’ll be right back,” I said.
“Good,” he replied. “You wouldn’t want to go wandering off in here. There are some very dangerous things in this facility.”
I nodded quickly before I turned to head through the door he had indicated before. Dangerous things. Yes. They were all around me.
The problem was, I was starting to wonder if he might be one of them.
The women’s changing room was lined entirely with pea-green loc
kers. Some of them had combination locks on them, keeping their contents secret. The three nearest the door were marked VISITOR. I opened one of those, pulling out the pale blue medical scrubs inside. There were even slippers, and a plastic cap for my hair. Reduce the risk as much as possible. Not to zero—never to zero; the only thing that’s at absolutely zero risk is something dead, or that was never at risk at all—but to as close as science can manage.
I stripped to my bra and underpants before stopping to wonder whether they might have cameras in the room. Modesty was one of the more difficult lessons they’d tried to drill into me, and I was still trying to get the more subtle details down. Were cameras supposed to be one of the things I couldn’t let see me naked, or could I relax around them?
Sherman would know.
That thought sent the cold dread roiling in my stomach once again. I’d almost forgotten about Sherman, and how very personal this infection could be. If Dad was sick…
He wasn’t showing any of the signs of the sleepwalking sickness. He was still calm, and coherent, and aware of his surroundings. He’d driven me to USAMRIID. The sleepwalkers weren’t capable of operating a car. That level of fine motor control was long gone by the time they started rambling. So why couldn’t I shake the feeling that I was missing something?
I dressed quickly, tying my hair into a ponytail before tucking it into the plastic cap. I stuffed my clothes into the locker. I didn’t have a lock. That wasn’t a problem, since the only things that really mattered—my notebook and Nathan’s copy of Don’t Go Out Alone—were still in my bag and safely hidden under the passenger seat in Dad’s car. If someone wanted to wander away with my clothes, I’d be annoyed, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
The pass was a flexible piece of memory plastic with my name and basic description printed on it, along with my picture. It softened when I pressed it against the breast of my scrubs, bonding with the fabric. I didn’t know how they were going to get it off again, and I didn’t care.